Surfactants and polymers are utilized in many laundry detergents to manage water conditions such as hardness and the presence of metals, along with increasing soil removal and soil suspension or anti-redeposition. These capabilities of laundry detergents are critical for industrial laundry, which relative to all other laundry classifications contain soil compositions having a high percentage of both oil and metals. Therefore, conventional laundry detergents are unable to provide efficacious laundering providing both oil suspension capabilities and ability to handle metals in the presence of such oil.
Insufficient oil suspension is particularly detrimental in industrial laundering. Washing equipment and machinery, namely shaker screens, can become coated in free soil when there is insufficient emulsification or soil suspension provided by a laundry detergent. Moreover, soils that are not appropriately suspended will re-deposit onto fabrics being laundered, resulting in buildup over repeated cycles and causing a graying or yellowing of the fabrics.
Various polymers, including polymers made from acrylic acid monomers are known for use in formulating laundry detergents. For example, U.S. Publication No. 2008/0306218 discloses polymerized residues of methacrylic acid, ethyl acrylate, a C12-polyethylene glycol ester of methacrylic acid and lauryl methacrylate. Moreover, U.S. Publication Nos. 2012/0165242 and 2012/0015861 disclose detergent compositions with less than 50 wt-% surfactants and polymerized residues of an acrylic acid terpolymer. However, such exemplary laundry detergents do not disclose high surfactant detergent composition in combination with acrylic acid polymers providing efficacious industrial laundering. Accordingly there is a continuing need to develop effective polymer and detergent systems that can be used to provide improve cleaning of industrial laundry soil compositions.
Accordingly, it is an objective of the claimed invention to develop industrial laundering detergents efficacious for soil removal and soil suspension while controlling metals present in the soils.
A further object of the invention is to provide methods for removing soils and suspending soils within an industrial laundering application without resulting in any yellowing or greying of soils due to the presence of metals in soils.
A further object of the invention is to provide compositions and methods of use thereof employing acrylic acid polymers, including methacrylic acid/ethyl acrylate polymers for industrial laundering.
Other objects, advantages and features of the present invention will become apparent from the following specification taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.